


highest fall you'll ever grace

by icarxs



Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Gen, M/M, Theodosia is a smol bean, Washington rules with an iron fist (of love and protection), there are zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:21:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5490299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarxs/pseuds/icarxs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eighteen months after the world had ended, and two weeks after John Laurens had given up hope of ever regaining any kind of desire to continue on, Alexander Hamilton walked into his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. feels more like a memory

**Author's Note:**

> I'm planning on ten chapters for this thing but frankly we'll see if that ever happens. Title is from Icarus by Bastille because I have no imagination or originality!
> 
> Thanks to Lin Manuel Miranda for instilling in me a love for obscure historical figures through the medium of showtunes.
> 
> (any Hamilton lyric references are probably accidental?? or else ironic. you decide)

icarus flew too close to the sun, but at least he flew – jeremy robert johnson

Eighteen months after the world had ended, and two weeks after John Laurens had given up hope of ever regaining any kind of desire to continue on, Alexander Hamilton walked into his life.

Okay, well, ‘walked’ was too kind – he staggered, really, the sort of journey that John had done himself, all those weeks ago, limping and half-starved up to Lafayette’s door, only when Alexander did it it looked at least something close to heroic instead of just sad. That was what Lafayette had called John, as he’d dragged him through the door by the collar, the sun just dipping below the horizon, in his accent that John had been so confused by – sad, sad like some kind of half drowned puppy, it’d have been cruel to leave him outside in the rain. Not that rain was the most dangerous thing. Anyway.

John had the job of slamming the door shut behind them as Lafayette got Alexander (not that they knew his name was Alexander then; he was just some guy with a month old beard shadowing his jaw, short in comparison to Lafayette, long hair, eyes sunken by the fear of living rough. They weren’t even sure if the blood was his, which in hindsight was pretty dangerous) down the long dark corridor and into the living room. John had bolted the door – their third line of defense and their last – slung his crossbow over shoulder and onto his back, double checked the locks and followed the soft hum of voices, then the louder crack of a Virginian accent that meant Washington had caught sight of their visitor. John was tired, too tired to argue for the life of a man he didn’t know, but Mulligan had done it for him and he felt at least some obligation to give it a shot.

In the lounge the man was laid out on the couch, barely conscious. Lafayette had vanished into the kitchen in search of medical supplies, and Washington had his gun in one hand, his face creased into its usual formidable frown, balancing neatly on the balls of his feet, so ready, always ready. It was stupid of them to bring him in. John winced. “Yeah,” he said, pre-empting the criticism he knew was coming, “he was just – Lafayette can’t leave anyone alone, you know.”

“Did I ask?” Washington rumbled. John didn’t say, _you didn’t need to._ John didn’t say, _we’re putting your house at risk, again_. John didn’t say, _is he bit_. Instead, he rocked back on his heels, looped his thumbs in his belt, and shrugged.

“Have you –”

There was a rustle, a clatter, then the soft fall of small feet – John spun to the door just as Theo came tumbling in, her short dark curls falling about her face, her cheeks (still soft with childhood, as delicate as they could keep her; she got the biggest rations and she was still thinner than she should have been, still not as rounded) bright. Aaron followed in an equal rush, the words falling out of his mouth like the chatter of a gun, “no Theo don’t we don’t know stay with daddy stay –”

“Out!” Washington snapped, voice a crack in the quiet of the apartment block, “get the child out of here!”

His voice made the man stir and John placed himself between the couch and Theodosia instinctively as Burr swept her into his arms. She always seemed at once incongruous there – Burr was not a small man by any account, nor a soft one in any situation that did not involve his daughter – and entirely at home, in her rightful place, a proper madam, the princess that they all treated her as. Burr shot them an apologetic look but didn’t hesitate to kick the door shut again behind him, Theo’s shriek of protest carrying through the wood. Thank God she was old enough now that she slept through the night, that she could run if she had to. John remembered when Frannie had been that age and – well, that wasn’t important. The entire scene had taken less than a minute, but John’s heart was in his throat, his mind filled with the images they all feared the most, Theodosia unsafe in her own home.

Washington had the gun trained on the stranger. Lafayette stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Shit,” he said, the rest of his body following, arms full of bandages; Hercules Mulligan followed with a tub of hot water, “was that Theo?”

“I thought we agreed, no one in the house,” said Washington. John considered taking the blame, but it was Lafayette’s fault, really. Washington’s hand was steady and his grip on the gun did not waver, even as he glared. It was an impressive example of the multitasking that was his major talent.

“I wasn’t just going to let him die. John, would you –”

John took the bucket from Herc. The water was warm and soapy. Herc was eyeing the stranger with something approaching mistrust. “Did you even check him?” he asked.

“Uh,” said Lafayette. “I’m gonna do that now.”

“Oh my god,” said Herc, rolling his eyes. “Jesus. One day –”

“He’s _fine_ , he said he was fine.”

“Before or after he entered a coma?”

John put the bowl down and knelt. The stranger’s eyes were flickering; he was drifting in and out of consciousness, and he had that rangy look about him that John recognised easily, the look of not having had enough to eat for months. He had a nasty scar that stretched down his jaw from his ear, down his neck, hovered over his pulse in a stretch of purple half-healed skin – a scar, yes, but not a bite mark. John rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and held a hand out for the cloth. “C’mon,” he said, interrupting Herc and Lafayette’s continued bickering. “Give.”

He dipped the cloth into the water and set to work on the dirt. Underneath it the man’s skin was a shade or two lighter than John’s own, though by no means white; his features said Hispanic, maybe. Under the beard he might’ve been handsome. John drew back as the man’s eyes (brown) opened, gazed at him without seeing. His lips were cracked and dry. “Someone get him some water, would you?”

It was Herc who went, which made sense considering Lafayette was the only one of them who could dress wounds, at least passably. He’d been a teacher, had completed all the first aid courses, mandatory or not, and what’s more he had a calm unhurried hand and a soul that was devoid of the possibility of ever being embarrassed. Those were qualities you wanted in someone when there weren’t any hospitals running anymore.

Unfortunately, they all knew it was just a matter of time before one of them caught something that Lafayette couldn’t fix. Theodosia was young and the food wasn’t good for her, and there were infections everywhere – not just The Infection, though that was a constant fear, no, diseases that had once been eradicated, with names that sounded like emo bands from John’s childhood, Cholera and Consumption and Smallpox. What they really needed was a doctor. This man didn’t look like a doctor. He was wearing a faded green hoodie, jeans that were stiff with mud and generalised muck, sneakers that had definitely seen better days, and he was only carrying one rucksack – Washington emptied it with his gun still at the ready, spewing contents all over the floor – that contained half a clip of ammunition and enough food for another week at best. There was nothing that screamed _I’m a helpful human being_.

John remembered when he’d first come round, somewhat like this only he’d been covered in less blood and Washington had been standing over him, which wasn’t something anyone wanted, really. He’d been almost more terrified of this man, this tall, scary, headteacher-ish, grizzled middle aged man, than all the biters in the world, almost, until Lafayette had shoved Washington out of the way and presented him with a warm mug of soup. Herc’s specialty: ‘everything soup’. It was as complex as it sounded, but it was warm and comforting and made him feel alive again. John pressed the back of his hand to the man’s forehead. “He’s hot,” he said.

“Now, now,” said Lafayette, grinning. Herc pressed the glass of water into John’s hand, cool, and sat back on his not inconsiderable haunches. “Shouldn’t you at least buy him dinner first?”

John shot him a Look and wrapped an arm around the stranger’s bony shoulders, helped him into something approaching a sitting position. “It’s just water,” he explained, as the man’s brown eyes darted over them all, still hazy. Behind them, though, was this fierce intelligence, so strong it was like another presence in the room; there was something sharp and quick and fast about him that John liked, like a fox or a lynx. He placed the glass at the man’s lips and he drank, slowly at first and then faster, until it was drained. John settled him back on the couch and said, in a huff, “were you bitten?”

The man’s voice was cracked with disuse and his accent was surprising this far north, reminded John of holidays – Caribbean. “No, no.” He looked exhausted. John could feel Washington’s mistrusting gaze and sighed.

“D’you mind if we check?”

The man shook his head and sunk further into the cushions of the old couch. His hoodie was ripped and torn and filthy; John stood up – his knees groaned in protest, his crossbow dug into his spine, his body screamed _take a break_ – and stepped back. “Lafayette?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

They retreated to the kitchen. Washington was buzzing with barely supressed energy, the need to pace visible in his set jaw, but he resisted for the sake of Aaron, who was probably desperately trying to get Theo to sleep somewhere further back in the warren of rooms that they had on this floor. Each wall was broken through, like holes in a block of cheese – the only access to the outside world and the staircase beyond was the door that John had triple bolted, everywhere else being nailed shut, and the rooms just led into each other, a seemingly endless parades of old lives. They could access eight apartments that way, though they only really used three of them. Sometimes at night they heard the scuffling from down below as the biters tried to figure out a way in, but stairs were usually too much unless they were desperate and there was easier prey and anyway John could pick them off one by one from half a dozen vantage points. He’d say they were safe here if he didn’t know how stupid that would be. Herc shuffled through the cupboards like he was dealing cards. “We’re low.”

“We can do a run tomorrow,” Washington said. He gave in and began to pace, his long legs taking him up and down the small room, boots squeaking on the linoleum. “By God – you can’t do this again.”

“Me?” John protested mildly. “What did I do?” Washington fixed him with a glare like a beacon. “You’re the only one Lafayette listens to.”

It was entirely true. Lafayette – who was past six foot, though once anyone got to know him they realised he was one of the least intimidating men to walk the planet – had a healthy respect for Washington that bordered on hero-worship. It was a trap that John was finding it hard not to fall into; Washington was the sort of man who seemed to be put on this earth just so that young impressionable men would hero-worship him, and these days he was surrounded by young impressionable men. “I’ll talk to him later,” Washington commented darkly, and John felt that teacher-feeling, the father-feeling, the weight of authority’s disappointment. Herc made a face over Washington’s shoulder and the feeling receded somewhat.

Lafayette was wiping his hands on his jeans. “He’s fine,” he said, appearing in the doorway. “I’m letting him sleep.”

“Alright,” said John. There was something tight in his throat, something heavy in his chest.

“His name’s Alexander.”

 _Oh no_ , John thought, _he’s named now_ ; even Washington couldn’t begrudge him a place to stay, not if he was named. Washington knew it – he groaned and placed the gun by the sink, where plates used to be stacked by bored housewives back when the world was normal and John didn’t feel light as meringue without his crossbow. The metal made a heavy sound. John said, “let me just grab my jacket,” and darted past Lafayette, back into the room. His jacket wasn’t there – he was lying. There was something about the stranger that made his chest constrict, something that tugged him back.

Alexander was asleep, which was markedly different from a coma. He needed some food in him; John thought, _I’ll wake him in four hours and see if I can’t get some soup into him_. His mother’s voice was chiming under the words, the North Carolina in him saying _feed this man, host_. He shook his head at himself and grabbed a book from the bookshelf for want of something to do; he could hear Herc and Lafayette bickering again. When he looked up Washington was watching from the doorway; he raised two grey eyebrows and John felt himself – horribly – blushing. Alexander made a soft noise and shifted on the couch. He was the most alive thing in here, filled with new stories, new skills, new possibilities.

“Get on,” said Washington, but he was smiling when he turned sharply on his heel, leaving John with the novel in one hand and the sense of the future opening up in front of him in the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my twitter is [here](http://twitter.com/catastrphx) and my tumblr is [here](http://catastrphx.tumblr.com), come and say hi!!


	2. going downtown, slumming it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re slow, Angie, and you’re quick. You’re all so quick. Where will you end, my quick little girls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is not going to end up being more than 20k, sorry to disappoint. I don't have the energy to write more than that and I figured lots of short chapters is better than one long one. Anyway - SCHUYLER SISTERS
> 
> If you don't like my characterisation, let me know why! Thanks again @ Lin I'm sorry I have your characters fighting zombies.
> 
> [nb there is some zombie-style violence in this chapter. it's not too graphic though]

Downtown, the air was calm. It was hotter than usual for December – but nothing was usual anymore, and the summer had stretched long into what would have been winter, the clouds above the three sisters heavy and clogged with ash from the thousands, even millions of fires that burnt across the whole countries. Stoves left abandoned, car crashes, gas stations, oil rigs, deliberate arson – it seemed like nowadays it was impossible to cross the road without seeing a smudge of tell-tale soot on the horizon, and they had learnt to avoid those places. Fire drew _them,_ those _things_ ; it was all the light and the delicious crackle of timber as it began to fall from the roofs of the houses caught in the blaze. Out of the city it got worse, with entire fields of corn lost to flames, whole swatches of the Midwest impassable. That was Angelica’s theory anyway. In reality, none of the Schuylers had been out of the city in almost two years. They knew their territory, and these days knowing where you were going was paramount.

They were clearing out the block. Clearing out was a relative term, because with a whole city’s worth of biters it was practically impossible to ever keep a place clean. Angelica took point, a knife in either hand. Eliza, who had the best eyesight, was at the back scanning, constantly watching. They needed this avenue safe, or at least as safe as it could ever be, because it led straight up to the Walmart that was their major food source. Their small den a few streets down was running dangerously low on tins, and they weren’t desperate enough for rats yet, though plenty of them lined the streets, feasting. _Best year for rats since the plague_ , Eliza had said, and Angelica had said, grimly, _the plague killed rats too_ , and Eliza had kicked her hard in the bone of her ankle and said _jesus fuck, lighten up_. Anyway: Walmart, not rats.

Peggy, who had the only pistol that still had ammunition left from their trade with the Churches tucked into the back of her jeans and a mean baseball bat bouncing nervously, was in the centre. She kept swinging the from hand to hand. It was highly distracting, but Angelica let her do it. It had been a long time since she could tell her little sister off over anything. Even so, the pendulum motion kept catching her eye as they inched down the road, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, the movement both soothing and grating at the same time, much like Peggy herself. They reached cover; the oil from the upturned car coated their feet. Angelica, her thoughts skimming in their usual way like a dragonfly, thought: _oil, match. Inside pocket. Emergencies only. If needed, get onto that clean sidewalk._ Then flame them up. That was what her father had taught her, that last few days in their dingy apartment before his oxygen ran out, a week after the home nurse had left one evening and never returned. Always have a second plan, always have a back up, always have an escape route. They’re slow, Angie, and you’re quick. You’re all so quick. Where will you end, my quick little girls.

“Alright,” she said, swallowing against her dry mouth as Peggy switched hands again. Eliza was closest to the car, keen eyes slipping quickly over doorways, alleys. They knew this part of the city as well as they knew each other, but the oil was new. The oil was an opportunity. “Ready?”

Peggy passed the bat one more time. Her stance was similar to when they were kids and used to play baseball in the park. Angelica pulled her eyes away – now was _not_ the time for sentimentality. Already there was a faint groan coming from the nearby alley. Eliza nodded once towards it, second on the right, and backed herself up to the car. “Start there,” she said, and Angelica raised the handle of the knife, ready to bang on the car bonnet. They wanted them all to come this way, while they had something solid at their backs. “Let’s go,” said Peggy.

The biter had its clawed hands on the end of Eliza’s plait before any of them could react, and Eliza screeched as it dragged her backwards. Her head hit the grimy underside of the car, scraping down the metal; the thing was underneath it, scrabbling at their ankles, Eliza’s hair caught around its wrist, and Angelica didn’t even have time to scream before Peggy’s boot came down on its forearm, splintering the decaying bone until finally the hand detached. Eliza sprang away from the car, her hair flying, the hand flying with it, skittering across the tarmacked road. Angelica didn’t stop to see if the myth about detached limbs still moving was true, instead bringing her knife down and into the thing’s skull. It snarled one last time before whatever it was that animated it disappeared. Eliza was breathing hard, her skin flushed.

“God,” she gasped, “ _God_ , that was so close.”

The commotion and the banging of Eliza’s head on the car had begun to bring the others. The moaning was louder. Eliza was bleeding from her temple, the blood trickling down her cheek; Peggy wiped at it with her sleeve, cursing. “Come here,” Angelica snapped. “Turn.” Eliza did; Angelica shoved her knife into her belt and grabbed her sister’s plait. “Okay?”

“Get it off me.” Eliza’s voice was shaking; they were all spooked. Stupid; they always checked the car. Angelica made quick work of the long twist (she had used to plait it every day before school so it was up and out of the way of the chemistry equipment, so that the boys couldn’t pull on it, fingers looping in and out in the pool of sunshine in their shared bedroom, _Eliza_ , God her heart was beating fast), sawing it close to the top, at the nape of Eliza’s neck; when it came loose her straight dark hair fluttered to rest just at her chin, and she shook her head and shuddered, violently, uncontrollably. Angelica tossed the plait aside; it hit the monster under the car. “No more long hair.”

Peggy, whose hair was in tight corkscrew curls and was almost never at risk, smiled smugly. “No more long hair,” she said brightly, revelling, and Eliza grimaced at her. The biters were shambling towards them, five of them, nothing they couldn’t handle; they got into formation, back to back. Eliza was still breathing hard, Angelica could feel her shoulders moving. She pulled out her second knife.

“Breathe,” she ordered.

The first one was only a few yards away, arms outstretched; a woman, her dress torn and bloodied. Angelica never had a problem with the biters. Practical to a fault, she didn’t have any sympathy for them. Most people that they had met on their travels through their city – Church with her family on the outskirts, Jeff and his boys in the centre – had their limits; Peggy couldn’t deal with the children, but Angelica had always said that their lack of strength just made it easier to take them down. There was no space here for emotions, no time to think _who was she? was she going somewhere nice in that dress? Did the person who was waiting for her get caught first, or were they together when the first wave came_? That sort of thinking was clouding, was dangerous.

Angelica caught the woman by one bony shoulder and got her knife in just under the jaw, felt the skin give. The sisters had seen a lot of people die, real people, over the past eighteen months, enough to know that these things weren’t ever alive. There was no rush of life leaving the body, no light going out in the eyes, because there was no life to leave, there was no candle to extinguish. Angelica let the body fall and kicked it in front of the trio, knowing that if they’ve miscalculated the few seconds it took for the next biter to stumble over it could be valuable. It didn’t look like they’d have much trouble.

Peggy takes the next one, and the next. The gun, the emergency gun, enough for three biters and then three sisters, gleamed in the dull grey light that filtered through the clouds. There was something disarmingly slow about this sort of clear out, especially now Eliza’s flush of fear has died – there were a few more biters shambling out of the shadows, joining their bretheren, but they were so slow, so unhurried. Angelica often wondered how they would continue to survive, long term, now that the easy prey was gone and they were facing people like them, fast on their feet. These things were evolution’s mistake, and Angelica would know; she had been taking genetics at Stanford before she’d been called home. The things were lucky, in the first months, that humans were too frightened, too closely packed to resist, like pack animals. In a funnelled way like this the sisters knew perfectly well how to deal with even twenty biters. One by one, take it slow, like stirring a stew.

Angelica was into a lot of food metaphors. She was always hungry. That was why the Walmart was such a prize, especially with the other gangs – the larger ones, the nastier ones, made of the kind of criminals who thrive on apocalypse, as well as smaller, fiercer ones like Church and Jeff, nipping at their heels – slowly inching forward, seizing territory and control. They needed food; Peggy and Eliza needed food. Angelica had promised to protect them at all cost, so here they were, moving east, and there was the Walmart like a fucking sign from heaven, and if Angelica had to take down Jane Church _and_ Thomas Jefferson and any other person unskilled enough to get in her way just to get her sisters something that wasn’t tinned peaches, she’d do it in a heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Alexander Hamilton is conscious.


	3. more of us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was a mean shot. When he talked too much his words ran together like he was drunk, like the effort to get all his ideas out was too much for him. He was from the West Indies. He missed curry the most. He over shared, and his mother died when he was twelve, and he was a journalist, and he had never ridden a bike in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will I ever stop apologising for such short chapters? not today, sir
> 
> sorry for the short chapter
> 
> thanks @ Lin @ Chernow @ A. Ham

They were midway through dinner when Alexander joined them.

He was silent as he slunk into their spare seat, a state which John would later realise was incredibly rare for him. The smell of food had probably finally forced him to stir from his strange state of hibernation on the couch; John understood that feeling, when your body had been going for so long that you had to sleep for days to even come close to being functional again. It was the same feeling he used to get at college, when he’d burnt himself out over Law books he hated and had tried to complete an essay on no sleep, except a thousand times worse. Fear burns you out faster than anything.

Dinner wasn’t anything special, just tins, tinned beans, tinned spam chopped up small to look like proper meat, tinned peaches for dessert. The days when they had custard were the best. Herc was the only one of them who could cook a passable mean, which apparently (and this was before John’s time) had been discovered only after Washington had insisted for several months that he knew what he was doing, forcing his concoctions on everyone until Lafayette had finally snapped and begged Herc to do something for the sake of all of their stomachs. He frequently and loudly complained about the “state he was required to work in,” until Lafayette was forced to shut him up with a kiss.

Theo noticed Alexander’s presence first. She was a bright one, that girl, and John was frequently frightened by the amount he cared about her, no matter his attempts to keep them all at arms length; he knew from experience the pain kids like that could cause, but she had snuck into his heart regardless. She could talk – at almost two and a half she could construct sentences that were complete and at least semi-coherent – but she usually chose not to, and once (very drunk, when they’d found one of the last bottles of drinkable alcohol in a supermarket far from here) Aaron had confessed that he was afraid the constant running, the things she’d seen, had permanently changed her. It was that kind of helpless dependence on another’s happiness that John was trying to avoid. He’d done that shit already, thank you.

 Whatever the case about her emotional development may have been, Theo’s sharp eyes filled with excitement as soon as Alexander took his place at the table, and they narrowly avoided a beans incident as she waved her arms and chirped in excitement.

“No,” said Aaron, prising the spoon out of her small hand with difficulty. “No beans.”

“Yes!” She screeched. “Yes! Bean!”

Aaron rolled his dark eyes at Alexander as if it was his fault.

“Nice of you to join us,” Herc said, through a mouthful.

“How are you feeling?” chimed in Lafayette, dutifully doling out a bowl of the beans-and-strange-meat concoction and pushing it across the old table. “Still a bit sore, probably.”

“A little,” Alexander said, his bright eyes sweeping over them all, “thank you.” Every time he spoke there was this strange suspense, as though he was restraining a thousand new words behind each phrase, a dam of silence, the unspoken sounds hanging in the air for a few moments before they fell to the ground, wasted; John was watching his mouth.

John thought, _shit_.

“You were in a pretty bad place out there,” said Washington, in that army voice, the _I’m not interrogating you, but_ voice. “Were you alone? No group?”

Alexander snorted. Behind that one sound was eighteen months of loneliness. “No group,” he said, and dug into his food like a starving man. Herc watched him with some satisfaction.

“Man!” chirped Theo, and threw another spoonful of beans. John laughed as Aaron sighed heavily.

“Yeah,” he said, “man. Beans. Table. Please, no.”

“Yes!”

“No.” He confiscated the beans. Alexander looked up from his plate, which was scraped clean, and his eyes were full of something that made John's chest hurt; he put down his fork too quickly and Lafayette raised his dark eyebrows.

“I'm John,” John said, too quick again, his voice clanging over the sound of food. Lafayette's eyebrows rose even higher and John resisted the urge to glare at him. “This is Lafayette, Herc, Washington and Aaron. And Theo”

“Nice to meet you.” There it was again, that restraint. A whole speech was in that gap. “Thank you for letting me stay - I'm sorry for taking up so much of your space.”

Washington looked at John and Lafayette like, _here's your chance, get rid of him now, send him on his_ way – but John was determined. There was something about this man that had grabbed John even days before, something in the way he’d just stood and watched the approaching biters, made no attempt to run, before Lafayette had grabbed him by one arm and dragged him into their building. He had this fortitude and purpose in his jaw that both scared and intimidated John; he was certain that this man would be _useful_.

 “Don't worry about it,” he said, before Lafayette could give in to Washington as he always did, “we don't leave people behind.”

Alexander examined him for a moment and that intelligence shone onto John like a physical force, like standing under a torch beam, before he nodded. “Well, thanks anyway.”

“Actually, it was me who saved you,” sniffed Lafayette. “Johnny just did the shooting.”

John scowled at him. “It was excellent shooting, I saved your French ass.” Aaron cleared his throat. “Sorry. I saved your French...uh....”

“Con?” Lafayette suggested innocently. Aaron sent him a warning look.

“I don't know what that means, but I'm sure a two year old shouldn't hear it.”

“Pfft. In Paris she'd know that one before her second birthday.”

“You haven't been in Paris since you were eighteen, don’t boast” Washington cut in with a rumble, and Lafayette shrugged with a wide grin but went quiet anyway - Washington had that effect on him. “Alexander - what did you say your surname was?”

“I didn't,” the stranger said. “It's Hamilton.”

“Washington likes to use surnames,” Lafayette said in a stage whisper. “It makes him feel important.”

“Would you prefer I called you Gilbert?”

“Shockingly, I would not.”

“Gilbert?” said Alexander incredulously. Lafayette looked pained.

“My mother was a romantic,” he said. “Newbie washes dishes!”

That was that; he was one of them. Alexander beamed.

 

John learnt a little more about him over the next week.

He was a mean shot. When he talked too much his words ran together like he was drunk, like the effort to get all his ideas out was too much for him. He was from the West Indies. He missed curry the most. He over shared, and his mother died when he was twelve, and he was a journalist, and he had never ridden a bike in his life. He liked to have a sounding board - and there was nothing John was better at than being quiet and listening. He could swear in French, and Lafayette was delighted. Actually, he could swear in most languages. On their first raid he hit a biter in the eye at forty paces with Washington’s handgun and John wondered again at his strange acceptance that day out on the street when he’d been saved.

His scar was from a man with a knife at the beginning of the outbreak.

He didn't like loud noises.

He could gut a person.

He was quick on his feet and the shortest of all of them, the slimmest in the shoulders; he could wiggle into gaps and seemed to have no fear, not even the healthy kind, of dark passages. He got them more food, and he took Herc and John out one day to show them where he’d been sleeping and fetch his few belongings; they were a sad bunch, some flimsy ripped paperbacks, another t-shirt and set of underwear, some meagre food. Even so, the sheltered blocked off room on the ground floor of a barbers would make for another bolt hole. They kept them around the city anywhere where it might be risky to get back to the apartment block, and Herc walked the entire perimeter to decide how to secure it, and they left some tins and some ammunition there, just in case.

“So, what?” Alexander asked, as they locked up the door with the heavy chain. They were spending the night; moving around this part of the city was much too risky in the dark. “You all just _found_ an empty block?” He sounded sceptical, like he couldn’t believe anyone could be so lucky anymore. “No way.”

“Not exactly.” Herc had first watch and held his shotgun across his chest like a bayonet. “Washington lived there. I think?” He looked to John for confirmation. John just shrugged.

“That’s what’s been implied. A lot of his stuff is there.”

“Yeah.” Herc made a face. “Honestly, we’re all still trying to figure out what he did Before, even Lafayette, and he’s been with him since the beginning. He was military, probably.”

“Definitely,” said Alexander. He caught John’s eye. “What? It’s the way he holds himself. I grew up around guys like that.”

“Soldiers? What, did your family move out there?”

“I didn’t say soldiers.”

John dropped it. Herc continued casually, ignoring them, “Lafayette turned up at his door sometime in the first few weeks. Washington already had half of it prepared – he has enough ammunition to survive fuckin’ anything, man. And food, too; we’ve barely had to scavenge until a few months ago, when John turned up and fucked up the ratio.”

“Thanks,” said John dryly, trying to make his collection of ragged blankets at least a little more comfortable.

“Anyway, they picked me up last year sometime.” Herc stretched out his long legs; he made every space feel small. “I was beat up pretty bad and Lafayette fixed me up.”

“Uh huh,” said John sleepily. “Fixed you up. Sure.”

“Shut up.”

John caught the side corner of Alexander’s smile as he turned his head away. “I’ll take second watch,” he said, “In return for all your answers.”

“It’s not a secret, man,” Herc snorted. “Except Washington, maybe. Oh, hey, John. Ex-FBI?”

“Maybe,” John said. “But I feel like he’s too rough for that. CIA, though. I can see him assassinating someone.”

“Not a cop, then?” said Alexander.

“Nah, we asked.” Herc widened his eyes in the dim light. “Unless he’s lying. Maybe it’s _all_ a lie. Maybe we’re on a reality show and he’s actually a professional chef.”

John laughed too loudly, clapped a hand over his mouth. “Jesus, that’d take good acting,” he said, grinning broadly. “Can you imagine?”

Herc lowered his voice to an announcer’s boom. “George Washington’s Zesty Zombies, brought to you by Gordon Ramsey.”

“Broiled Biters,” offered Alexander.

“Deep-fried Dead.”

John snorted. “Poor Ramsey, I wonder how he’s doing.”

“Probably stumbling along somewhere in New York with the rest of them.” Herc rolled his shoulders back until they cracked. Alexander, from his prone form, was already gone. “Now get some sleep, we can ask him in the morning.”

 

In return for the bolthole, they all offered him things. Washington let Alexander at his precious books, reading correctly on his face the longing every time he passed through the lounge. Once, Alexander found an inscription, _dear Martha and George on your wedding day, may you have a long ----_ , water damaged, and showed it to John, and John had gently advised him to say nothing, to let it be. The Washington Mystery wasn’t worth that much.

Lafayette took him out in their only mode of transport, Herc’s ancient truck, on a further food run, right out to the west end, deep into gang territory, and when they returned three days later – John was glad for it, because it was a day later than planned and Herc was beginning to get edgy (and maybe he was, a little, as well) – they were strangely the best of friends, high fiving at nothing and constantly on a pin-point between seriousness and dissolving into desperate laughter.

Herc taught him to hit something hard enough that it would stay down, whether it was dead or Undead or simply a person who got too close; they practiced out the front at noon with baseball bats and old cardboard boxes, until Alexander’s arms began to build up again, until he looked less starved and more just that rangy-thin that John figured he had probably always been.

Aaron let him sit with Theo, though the suspicion never quite left him. Burr was their best shot other than Washington and they needed him when they went into unexplored areas of the city, the densely packed suburbs where the zombie packs strolled the streets, standby, ready and waiting for them. When Theo was sick and they needed medicine it was Alexander they left behind with the girl, and even that in itself was a mark of such trust that John could hardly believe it; when they fought their way out of the house and to the truck and Aaron almost got bit he thought – who would take care of her then? Alexander?

As for John himself, he teaches him to shoot.

Alexander, as previously mentioned, was good with a gun, more than good, almost as good as Aaron. But bullets ran out quickly, and even Washington’s store couldn’t last forever, and they were noisy and clunky. The crossbow was silent, and more arrows could easily be made; John was good with a whittling knife and always had been, and all they needed was metal for the head and they were set. God knows there was sharp enough metal lying around.

Alexander eyed it like it was a strange animal. John tsked. “Look, it’s easy,” he said. “Easier than a longbow, at least. And there’s no recoil like with a gun. Watch.”

They were a few streets from the block. Lafayette, leaning against an abandoned car a hundred meters away, was watching their back, but they had blocked off all the alleys around here long ago and it was a straight path to safety; they would hear the biters coming miles away, clanging into the strings of cans they’d looped around their little zone of safety. John would back the release. Alexander’s sharp eyes were watching him, the tension in his biceps and the way he aimed down the sight, his stance with his feet slightly apart and shoulders back. John aimed for a can. “You just wind up the elastic,” he said, voice constrained with the effort, and then you –” He hit the trigger. The can flew off the top of the car, and he felt the familiar satisfaction, the _thwish_ of the arrow through the air, the release of strain. Alexander was grinning. “What?”

“I bet you were a proper rancher,” he said. “Did you round up the cows for your dad?” He put on an appalling southern accent. “Up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just me an’ ma horse?”

“That was embarrassing.”

He beamed. “Thanks.”

“There aren’t any ranches in South Carolina.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Actually,” John said, attempting to regain some dignity – he could, in fact, ride a horse pretty damn well, but he wasn’t going to mention that, “I grew up on the coast. Charleston. Now, take this.”

Alexander staggered slightly when he took the crossbow. “Shit!”

“What were you expecting? It’s not a handgun,” John said brusquely. “You gotta wind it up here –” He huffed in frustration, too conscious now of his own accent; Alexander was grinning at him expectantly. “God – yes, fine, I can ride.”

Alexander looked delighted. “No way!”

“Yeah, and hunt. Will you pay attention now?”

“Did you live on a plantation?”

John gestured to his dark skin. “Do I look like I lived on a plantation?”

“Alright, good point.” Alexander hefted the crossbow, sighted along the line. “How do you wind and aim?”

“Practice.” John glanced back at Lafayette, who made a very explicit hand gesture; he glared, but the look didn’t hold much weight. “Your stance is all wrong –”

“Oh, thanks. Shockingly, I’ve never held a crossbow before –”

“You’ve just gotta stand like –” He placed his hands on Alexander’s hips, shifted him a few centimetres, tried not to blush. Alexander was still complaining.

“So sue me if I don’t know the proper _stance_ for firing a _medieval weapon_ –”

“Do you ever shut up?” John said wonderingly. “Try aiming now.”

Alexander looked a little mollified. “That is better.”

“Yeah. Alright. Wind.”

Alexander did, with a grunt, and John took a cautious step back. He didn’t want to be impaled. “Shoot now?”

The shot went wide, but not as wide as it could’ve gone; Alexander whooped, face flushed, hand shaking with the recoil. “Yeah!” he said. “Yeah! Damn, that’s great!”

“Quiet, too,” said John dryly. “Unless you’re firing it, apparently.”

“Guys,” called Lafayette. “Company.”

John spun, hand going to his back, but of course the crossbow wasn’t there. He sighed and pulled out his knife; Lafayette was ahead of him, but neither of them wanted him to have to fire his pistol this close to home. He was maybe twenty paces from the shambling thing (he never got used to the way their skin peeled) before there was a _whizz_ and a _thump_ , and it fell backwards, a feathered arrow protruding from its forehead. John stared dumbly before turning on his heel. “Hey! You could’ve hit me!”

Alexander was looking absurdly proud, weighing the crossbow in one hand. “But I didn’t,” he said, cheerfully. “I’m a fast learner,” and for some reason John found himself flushing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about hunting, crossbows or South Carolina, except what I googled (???there are so many crossbow reviews online. who knew)
> 
> I know a bit about horse riding but unfortunately John does not ride a horse in this chapter
> 
> In other news I can't believe what complete trash this fic is becoming? for those of you who were hoping for Serious Discussions Of Mortality In A Zombie Apocalypse I am so sorry


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